Elmar Sprink

Name: Elmar Sprink

Date of Birth: 26.12.1971

Residence: Cologne, Germany

Reborn on July 12

Elmar Sprink is 45 years old and in great shape, but something definitely
separates him from other athletes in his age group - Elmar has been living with
a heart defect since 2012. The guy from Cologne is considered to be the fittest
heart transplant recipients in the world. He has even finished with the two
hardest mountain bike races in the world, the Cape Epic in South Africa and
the Transalp in the Alps.

His Story

The story is incredible and shocking at the same time – Elmar Sprink is an ambitious
endurance sportsman and in fantastic shape when his heart suddenly and unexpectedly
stops beating. And not even during a hard workout, but at home on the sofa watching
TV. What was he watching? The 8th stage of the Tour de France.

Elmar wakes up in the hospital, tubes and cables everywhere, the sound of beeping
for company. “I couldn’t remember anything: the sofa, Tour de France, black. I had
no idea what had happened, but I guessed that it must have been something serious …”

From that point on his entire life was turned upside down, and he embarked on what
would be a long period of suffering. Elmar’s condition became increasingly critical.
The downward spiral continued until the day when his heart can no longer keep him
alive – without heart transplant he would die. “In February 2012, I had only 12 hours
to live. I came to a kind of heart-lung machine, lay in bed for almost 190 days. But
I simply did not want to die.” From the heart’s failure to the transplant, almost
two years passed, the last 189 days he spent lying in the hospital bed. Elmar
celebrates the day of his hospital discharge – July 11, 2012 – as his second
birthday.

But the way back to normal life is extremely difficult: “I had to learn to sit and
stand again. But the more I moved, the better I was physically.” Elmar made a list
of goals: First, take a look at trivial things like walking and drinking milk
coffee. But the top of the list is the Ironman in Hawaii – and in 2014 he checked
that off the list, in 12 hours and 30 minutes as the 1,490th of 2,200 participants.

Meanwhile, five years have passed and Elmar is doing what he has always liked
most – endurance and extreme sports. Since the transplant, he has contested in
addition to the three Ironman, the Transalp-Run and the two hardest Mountainbike
races in the world. In the meantime, he has also become the Triathlon World
Champion at the World Transplant Games in Malaga, Spain, in June.